1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body structure for vehicle. Particularly, it relates to the (vehicle) body structure around a dash panel which separates a vehicle cabin and a front compartment or a rear compartment of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, when assembling a plurality of body panel members provided by press working to construct a vehicle body, the positioning of the respective body panel members is carried out by attaching them to body jigs prescribing the relative positions of the members. Further, the welding operation of the panel members to be welded is performed on condition that the members are pinched by respective clamping jigs for temporarily holding (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications Nos. 10-264862 and 7-309254).
In recent years, it has been adopted to construct the vehicle body by plural panel members consisting of extrusions or castings of lightweight metal, such as aluminum alloy, in place of the press moldings, in view of making the lightweight vehicle body compatible with its rigidity. For example, there is developed a vehicle body structure where a dash panel separating the vehicle cabin and the front compartment (or the rear compartment) consists of an extrusion having an improved rigidity. In the structure, the extrusion is provided with a closed sectional structure having inner and outer walls and obtained by extruding the above lightweight metal to the vehicle's width direction. The so-constructed dash panel is reinforced by a reinforcement member which is made of a casting of lightweight metal and connected to the under face of the dash panel.
However, the above-mentioned positioning jigs and the clamping jigs have been still required to connect the dash panel with the reinforcement member in spite of such the measures for the lightweight vehicle body compatible with its rigidity. It means that the above-mentioned assembling form causes enormous number of positioning and clamping jigs to be required every sort of vehicles and every process. Consequently, with the addition of installation cost and steps of setting the jigs, the labor cost is apt to increase disadvantageously.